Ideological Archeology: Rousseau (II)

Swiss-French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau's (1712-1778) personal life is marked by traits sounding awkwardly contemporary. Self-pity and paranoia play see-saw with wrong choices and deflecting blame. Man is by nature good, it is society that is the cause of corruption and vice. Iconic for Rousseauian thought is the image of the noble savage, man in his natural state before his fall from Paradise.

There is nothing ambiguous about his ethics however: he believed his 'doctrine of two substances' to be the key to the absolute quality of good and evil [Jonathan I. Israel, Radical Enlightenment, 2001, p., 2001, p. 719]. In an example in a classical setting he saw in Athenian decadence the degrading influence of reason. He preferred the cruder, militaristic Spartans, an unspoiled and nobler tribe. Their callous practice of exposing babies to nature - now in dispute - may well have inspired Rousseau to expose his own five illegitimate children to the hardships of the Paris orphanage.

Although Rousseau died in 1778, before the French Revolution, his justification of violence to power was the source of inspiration of the Reign of Terror that the Jacobins unleashed during the latter part of the rebellion. In 1792 the French 'citizen army' faced the Prussian forces at Valmy. In a psychological victory they prevented them from marching on to Paris to restore the monarchy. Earlier in the capital a mob had stormed the Tuilleries Palace. In the massacres over a thousand political prisoners were brutally hacked to death. Fabre d'Eglantine declared: "In the towns, let the blood of traitors be the first Holocaust to Liberty, so that in advancing to meet the common enemy, we leave nothing behind to disquiet us!" [Wildmonk]

After "the first Holocaust to Liberty" many more would follow. It is a specific feature, typical of Rousseau's constellation of ideas. The chief ingredients as expressed in "Profession de Foi" are a sweeping rejection of tradition, Revelation, and all institutionalized authority. [Radical Enlightenment, p. 718]

In Roussea's ideas we find the source of every anti-Liberal, violent revolution ever since the French Revolution went off the Lockean track. Rousseau is ultimately the father of many noxious and lethal traditions besides: Romanticism, redistributive Socialism, philosophical agrarianism, conservative Communitarianism, Nazism, and more to the point, the Counter-Enlightenment and postmodernism. Cultures, adopting Rousseauian ideas found in them a mirror of some aspect of their own identity. [Wildmonk]

Many have descended into the abyss of collectivist hell. In France his radical egalitarianism led to The Reign of Terror, in Germany to Left and Right Socialism with known result, in Russia and the Far East to communism, starvation and slaughter on grandiose scales. In China Mao Tse Tung's Great Leap Forward resulted in the greatest mass murder in human history and in Cambodia the Khmer Rouge's extermination campaign to establish Rousseauian agrarianism resulted in the deaths of well over twenty percent of the population. [Wildmonk] If this is not evil, frankly I don't know what is.

Why Rousseau is different
Rousseau stands apart in many respects. He marks the fault-line in Western tradition between Anglo-American and Continental lines of thought, and forms the point of departure from the Enlightenment because he is essentially anti-modern [Wildmonk]. While loosely following the traditional path of Enlightenment thought, his radical stance differs notably on the crucial issues of anti-individualism [Isaiah Berlin, "Against the Current", 2001], anti-capitalism and against private property ("Radical Enlightenment", p. 273), anti science and technology, his radical egalitarianism, and the inherent mindset in which the means are justified by the perceived noble end.

Rousseau is often quoted as the iconic philosopher of the Enlightenment, but it is quite clear he fiercely rejected all its tenets and values. No doubt, here we have the ground zero of the Counter-Enlightenment.

He was certainly no believer in mutually beneficial interaction, or the beneficial effects on society of self-interest (Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733), "The Fable of the Bees"), asserting that "society hardly needs to feed man's love for himself and his desire to be first among men." ["Radical Enlightenment", p. 273].

His radical egalitianism is echoed in the notion that rational and industrious man with dehumanizing machines would replace royalty as an enslaver of the common man, being better and more ruthless on the aggregation of material goods. He argued that the separation of the progress and dissemination of science and art from political and religious control are hazardous for society and for the virtue of the people [Bloom, 1990]. But it gets worse."

Common will" instead of freedom
In Rousseau we see the first social contract at the price of freedom and the birth of a notion called the "common will". The latter is a concept that in Rousseau's approach requires state intervention. This should not be confused with the 'common good'. It is a far more developed conception which, and unlike the former, can only be realized in the context of civil society under the state ["Radical Enlightenment", p. 720).

For the creation of a society of common will, "freedom of all the people", they need only accept the dictates of the state. This was Rousseau's essence of "true civilization." The struggle between rich and poor would then rise to a moral experience of self-restraint. [Wildmonk] With the faculty of moral choice thus abdicated and forfeited to the state, people would be free from lowly - earthly desires and reach full - ideal potential. Man is thus divorced from the social and economic context in which he lives and interacts with others. The ideal state of heaven, separated from earthly considerations.

This totalitarian approach to freedom, an abomination in every sense, was later further developed by Marx, who wrote that "capitalist, individual liberty is the most complete suppression of all individual liberty and total subjugation of individuality to social conditions" [Wildmonk: Marx, "Grundnisse", pp. 131]. "Freedom can only consist in socialized man, the associated producers, rationally regulating their interchange with Nature, bringing it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by the blind forces of Nature; and achieving this with the least expenditure of energy and under conditions most favourable to, and worthy of their human nature." [Wildmonk: Marx, "Selected Writings", pp. 496].

In this way man's separation from his nature and morality began. Never in human history were their worse judges of human character than Rousseau and his followers: all seek some degree of formal control over individual freedom for the purpose of creating material conditions deemed necessary for "true freedom", moralectomy in precise equal measure. Rousseau's concept of "common will" became the most savage, bloody instrument of social engineering in the history of mankind.

The Atlantic Ridge
In the United States Thomas Jefferson was the most prominent supporter of the French revolutionary achievements. Nevertheless, property rights and Enlightenment liberties were set in stone in the spirit of Locke, Montesquieu and Adam Smith. The present Democratic Party is being diverted further and further from that tradition as the sway of the postmoderns intensifies. Rhetorical style and attitude betray their influence.

While National Socialist and Communist ideas have swept America to some extent in their haydays - notwithstanding the counter culture, a product of the latter - these Rousseauian inspired ideologies remained by and large a marginal affair. Rousseau entering Locke's territory by the back- door may come as a surprise to some Americans - the wrong brand of revolution is encroaching on its most basic principles.

In Europe the situation was markedly different, as we shall see. Locke's influence remained on the whole limited to the British Isles. France and Germany have both Rousseau traditions, not Lockean. Today of great long-term concern is a possible return to some form of Rousseau inspired extreme ideology. It is chilling to see the rise of an unelected governing body on the European continent. The post-democratic elitism, combined with postmodern ideological chaos understood in the philosophical context, is an even more disquieting prospect.

Counter-Enlightenment projection* is on the order of the day and may even be consciously used as a tactic. Rousseau's brand of radical and revolutionary ideas, combined with the notion that civilization is so corrupt that it must be considered beyond salvation, makes him the father of all violent struggle in the last two and a half centuries.

Americans, tending to confuse Locke's revolution with Rousseau's, occasionally fall into the trap of supporting the wrong causes: initially the Russian Red Terror, and more recently, the covertly Islam inspired call for independence in the middle of Europe's powder keg, the Serbian province of Kosovo in the heart of the Balkans, thus providing a foothold in Europe for similarly based and equally pernicious radicalism.

The zero-sum game approach to economics also originates with Rousseau, which is giving rise to the annual media talking point that "a new report is suggesting that today's rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer". This is incorrect propaganda, some reason requiring regular public re-affirmation, perhaps for that reason alone.

Rousseau and Religion
The great minds of the Enlightenment proper - Spinozists excluded - never saw Christianity as their mortal enemy. To them Church and the Enlightenment were natural allies. Rousseau was no exception, but he had only a passing acquaintance with the Christian political tradition. Therefore he dismissed the role of Christianity as a moderating force in society. He saw the faith as entirely a spiritual undertaking, occupying itself only with "heavenly things."

Rousseau's Christians are so detached from reality that they can hardly be recognized: a people so spiritualized that they display a profound disinterest if their earthly pursuits are successful or not. Rousseau's call for transcendent values to harness the energies of men towards the 'common will', coupled with the rejection of Christianity as a engine of these values, made it a central tenet of all the Rousseauian ideologies [Wildmonk].

To Rousseau religion was an imperative. "... the state cannot ... pursue a policy of toleration for disbelievers, or view religion as a matter of individual conscience. It absolutely must, therefore, reject dangerous notions of toleration and the separation of church and state." and "so fundamentally important is religion that the ultimate penalty is appropriate for disbelievers ..." [Stephen R.C. Hicks, "Explaining Postmodernism", Scholargy Press, 2004, p. 98].

Despite being so enamored with force-feeding religion, after the publication of his work "Emile" he was driven into temporary exile in Bern after a warrant for his arrest was issued. "Emile" was widely denounced as irreligious and seditious.

The Legacy
The loather of civilization Rousseau was nevertheless greatly admired by the early Counter-Enlighteners, as he is by today's postmoderns. His followers mostly selected from his work what they could use to prop up their ideologies. Marx accepted Rousseau's critique of Locke's economic man but stood solidly by the Enlightenment in his appreciation for science and technology. Marx even went so far as to describe his ideology as Scientific Marxism, basically a pseudo scientific rationalization of his aggregate of ideas.

Hegel as well as Rousseau inspired Marx' theory of dialectic materialism, in which the theme is the dichotomy of the Oppressor versus the Oppressed. Now clearly a tactic of this dialectic, Rousseau's vista of a noble, primordial world destroyed by man's egoism, might well also have sired the epidemic of Western self-loathing.

Irony
Ironically, while Rousseau was convinced that civilization was the cause of moral degradation, little did he know that his followers, by rejecting objective reality, would drop morality along with it. Despite two and a half centuries of genocidal legacy in pursuit of Rousseauian ideal society it enjoys considerable support among the Western intelligentsia, specifically in the humanities departments of academia, the media, all levels of education, contemporary arts, the political elite, advisory boards, government ministries and departments and what is loosely described as 'the corridors of power.'

The postmodern heirs remain committed to undermining free-market democracy, casting misty eyes upon the Rousseauean atrocities. 110 million dead are not vile enough to discredit 'the Party of Humanity' in the views of some of the most stubborn apologists. Considering that totalitarian societies are today's version of the tribal community he so admired, the Rousseau ideal society could well be described as an agrarian totalitarian state.

Another point of irony is that Rousseau's conviction, that reason engenders egocentrism has been falsified by every non-government sponsored humanitarian organization on the face of the planet, while Rousseau's faithful follower Hegel is responsible for the subjectivism that saw the birth of egocentrism gone mad, the 'Master of the Universe' syndrome (each individual creates his own personal version of reality: If I die overnight, will the sun still rise tomorrow?).

In France, Rousseau's ideal of small, intimate villages and a peaceful, agricultural society built on the consent of the common will has resulted in France becoming a by-word for centralized statism. Rousseau's tenet that reason caused man's fall from paradise may well be the basis of the later Counter-Enlightenment's political ideals, modelled on the re-creation of 'paradise on earth', Utopias which usually turn out to be dystopias instead.

Postmodernism or Rousseauism?
Rousseau can certainly be traced back as the source of all members of the postmodern coalition: environmentalists, third-worldists (Baran-Wallerstein), feminists, anarchists, 'gender, identity and sexual orientation' theorists, traditional socialists of various plumage, and 'classical' postmoderns. It is a true gathering of Rousseauians that has largely remained uninvestigated, underreported and certainly undeclared.

In the chaos of the total postmodern bankruptcy in the wake of mayhem, moralectomy and grandiose failure, there is but one purpose left. A resolve that brings these ideologies together with a tradition with which it has so much in common. We are witnessing a spontaneous feast of recognition with radical Islam.

It is truly remarkable that every prior held conviction and allegiance has by now been jilted in favour of furthering the causes of the intolerant: it's back to the Rousseau basics. The grant plan: a strategy to deconstruct Western, democratic, liberal capitalism by critical theory, and 'irrational means of the will.'

* If you think of yourself as a peaceful, loving person, while actually you are full of wrath and hatred, the psychological coping device of projection - as if by magic - transforms the object of that wratch into someone who is hateful, devisive, full of vitriol and bile, bigoted, intolerant and hatemongering.

Exclusive: The Clinton Legacy, The Balkan Caliphate

Last Friday morning the traditional neoclassical building, today the Cultural Center of the University of Indianapolis - an architectonic jewel in the traditional old town of Athens at the foot of the Acropolis mountain - was the scenic theatre of the presentation of a book with the skin crawling title "The Coming Balkan Caliphate", written by the American author Christopher Deliso.

Deliso is director of Balkanalysis.com, a leading independent online news and analysis group.

The site utilizes a growing corps of writers and researchers from regional countries as well as from elsewhere in Europe and the United States. Amongst those Ioannis Michaletos, the intelligence blogger and Junior Analyst at Research Institute for European and American Studies (RIEAS) who has kindly provided this blog with unique background information on this summer's devastating wild fires, which - in all probability - were part of a pyro terrorism campaign against the Greek state, for which seventy people have been arrested, twenty of whom are described as 'foreigners'.

Deliso has lived and traveled widely in southeastern Europe and has a master's degree with distinction in Byzantine Studies from Oxford University (1999). Since 2001, he has published many articles on Balkan politics, economics, security issues, travel, history and culture in US and world newspapers, analysis firms such as the Economist Intelligence Unit, and in numerous magazines and websites.

The Balkans (link provides an excellent UN map) is the gateway between East and West, and historically Europe's soft underbelly. Presently organized crime and terrorism present a constant threat. Chris Deliso's eye-opening book details how fifteen years of misguided Western interventions, political scheming, and local mafia appeasement, compounded by a massive infusion of Arab cash, fundamentalist Islamic preaching and Wahhabi mosque building, have allowed radical Islamic groups to fill in the cracks between internal ethnic and religious schisms, and take root in key areas of the Balkans.

Deliso clarifies the situation as follows.

- Bosnia - During the 1990 Yugoslav conflict the Western powers conspired to allow Arab (Saudi, Wahhabi) mujaheddin, surplus of the Afghan resistance against Soviet occupation, to enter the territory as an easy way to counter the Serb attempts to keep the federation of Yugoslavia together, while countering internal Muslim harassment of local Christian populations.

Since the blow-back of this policy has become apparent, the US is pushing Bosnia to expel the radicals who've set up shop in the region. Belatedly, as by now they have gone underground. The present situation is said to be fluid.

There are however direct links between the Islamic radicals who were imported into Bosnia as a consequence of said Western policy, and the attacks of 9/11, the Madrid train bombings and the London attacks.

Another Bosnian connection that surfaced not so long ago was the foiled attempt on US Fort Dix and, just last week the scantly publicised matter of a Bosnian arrested in Vienna, Austria for a thwarted attack on the US Embassy in that city.

- Albania - Already historically a breading ground for lawlessness, tribalism and backwardness, this isolated rugged territory became a radical Islamist safe haven from the moment the old Stalinist regime fell. The US policy was to strengthen the fledgling democratic government. It is this blog's opinion that personal ties between Albania and the Clintons stem from these early years, as the US political order transited from the Cold War. Deliso: "The United States both cracked down on extremists and allied itself with Islamic leaders in the Tirana government, funding these radicals."

Albania became the scene of an influx of Wahhabi mujaheddin and Al Qaeda elements. Wahhabi mosque building is proliferating as we speak, as is Islamist social engineering: providing unemployed villagers with hand-outs to dress up as fundamentalists in an attempt at creating critical mass for the normalization of radicalism; call it the corrupt Islamist version of political correctness. This method is combined with a form of institutionalised thuggery: extortion, blackmail and intimidation. It is happening not just in Albania, but in all less affluent regions of the Balkans, of which there are many.

Albanian clan structure produces a social situation, ideal for the incubation of organised crime. The connection between terrorism and organised crime is by now well established; it is being monitored and documented by the various intelligence agencies.

- Kosovo - As was the case in Bosnia, Western policy has allowed mujaheddin to establish themselves in the territory, creating the conditions for radicalisation and Wahhabi mosque building. Also here the same pressurizing pattern of social engineering and intimidation emerges. (Tony Blair, rather shortsightedly, specifically encouraged mujaheddin who found themselves on UK territory, to join the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) so as to be rid of them).

Whether Kosovo, under American and European pressure, will become independent or not, is no longer really relevant as radical Islamization is concerned. The question is rather, will the matter of independence get sectarian dimensions or not.

Deliso was kind enough at this point to hand the audience a great scoop: there are Albanian-American radicals in Kosovo who had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attack. They were actively recruiting terrorists for 'the war against America'. The UN was aware of this fact, and did nothing.

Saudis and Pakistanis are making sincere efforts to take over the territory by means of (forced) conversions, proselytizing, charity hand-outs, entrenchment of Islamic banking structures, social engineering, intimidation, etc. Islamist functionaries are parachuted below the radar into minor positions, that are nevertheless of strategic interest. The word that springs to mind, is subversion.

Funds are pouring in. Donors are located in the Middle East, Malaysia and Birmingham (UK). The Islamic Heritage Foundation is another of the great Islamic charities exerting social pressure. The organization is banned in four countries, but is allowed to do their damnedest in the UN administered province of Kosovo.

The Bulgarian region of the Rodopi Mountains, bordering Greece, has pockets of radicalized villages, once again the result of Islamist import and social pressure, through charity, hand-outs, and intimidation.

There are tensions as a result of Christian versus Islamic animosity, but there's also competition over Saudi versus Turkish Islamic influence in the region.

While most Muslims - in the Balkans, or anywhere else - aren't fanatics at all, it must be stated that they profit from the situation in the sense that extremism offers them an opportunity to present themselves as the viable, reasonable alternative. Once in key positions, the moderates are threatened, intimidated and bullied into a more radical attitude. Their Islamist enforcers often take the shape of mafia style thugs.

- Intelligence failures - There has been a marked lack of intelligence sharing between countries, as well as between national or federal agencies. This has assisted in creating the current situation to a large extent. Various intelligence agencies per country are competing and fighting out turf wars over competence and jurisdiction. Given the EU's multinational dimensions this competition is even worse in Europe than it is in America. Terrorist groups of course have no such impediments.

The policies on Kosovo and Bosnia have assisted the nesting of foreign radical elements. The UN administration of Kosovo is inhabited by career diplomats whose attitude is to sit it out while pondering the next prestigious career move. Their motto consequently is "don't rock the boat", coupled with a mind set that prefers sweeping dirt under the carpet. Whistle-blowers are known to be stonewalled. There's high level corruption.


At this point Deliso voices concern over the US government's infiltration by spooks to an extent that is alarming. He also mentions there was a second failed attempt on Pope John Paul II's life, which is rarely publicised. I think I saw it reported once, but took it for a mistake. (Google produces no hits at all).

The threat of terrorism is also changing shape: an innovation are the so-called 'white devils', Caucasian converts who escape racial profiling. I think I predicted in these pages somewhere that this will likely be the face of terrorism in the future: a sort of Islamic Bader Meinhoff, just as fanatical, deluded, and radical Marxist as the Cold War set up.

Computer hacking is assisting terrorism by 'remote control', for example attacks on essential installations, such as power grids. The spate of pyro terrorism waltzing through Greece this summer may have been ignited 'remotely' by cell phones. Also in Greece some attacks were perilously close to power grids.

More attacks than we realise are being thwarted.

How's this for a coincidence ... on the morning that the former President Clinton is arriving in Athens to consult the local Socialist Party out of the crisis it finds itself in since losing the general elections - they cannot figure out how they lost it - Deliso is filling us in on some details of the Clinton legacy: "The Coming Balkan Caliphate".

Deliso stresses that he has spoken with high level US officials who have made plain that the 1990s failed policies were conscious decisions. The election of Hillary Rodham Clinton would in all probability bring back the same politicians who signed for the flawed policies of which we only now are experiencing the dire results: Wesley Clark, Madeleine Albright, Sandy Berger, Richard Holbrooke, to name but a few.

The questionable method of rendition that got the Bush government into trouble, was first used in 1995 in Albania during the early Clinton years. Ray Robison commenting on a Front Page Magazine article by Julia Gorin, "Kosovo – The Epicenter of Islamofascism?" writes on this matter:

"... There are Islamic extremists in Kosovo. There have been for years as evidenced by the Clinton Administration’s germination of a controversial policy called "rendition". It was in Bosnia and Kosovo that the rendition of Islamic terrorists to nations like Egypt - which would obviously employ torture and in some cases murderous interrogation methods - began. The reason the U.S. rendition policy became necessary is because the Islamic terrorists were not from Kosovo. They were sent back to Egypt in most cases because they were Egyptians. Now an argument can be made that these Arab jihadists, veterans of the Afghan mujahideen were supported locally by some Albanian Islamic extremists."

The US, having currently concentrated their efforts on the Middle East and Afghanistan, have an intelligence deficiency in the region. In the past the US have outsourced information gathering to Ukrainian and Romanian agencies, but stopped doing so when a inordinate amount of disinformation ensued.

- Greece - Greece has of course always objected to the failed Western policies in the Balkans, but was forced to go along with more powerful allies. Foreign policy instead was concentrated on the minor issues, such as the name of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), or Skopje, on which matter Turkey seems to be very well informed.

Also in Skopje enclaves have been created that are virtual no-go areas for Westerners: ideal safe havens for terrorists and radicals.

Greece should identify and correct the intelligence hiatus. If more information would be available to combat the War on Terrorism, Greece would become a more valuable partner.

What stood out - and this is effectively the reason why Greece in the West is almost a white elephant - was Deliso's underlining specifically that the Greek governments, as well as the Orthodox Church 'have not allowed' and have 'prevented' Islamic radicals from establishing themselves in the country. The habitual means of establishment is through charity organizations.

But what Greece and the Greek Orthodox Church can achieve, can also be done by other countries! All we know is, that they haven't. Was that the result of active, but inapt policies as described here by Deliso, or a lack of political will? Or are we perhaps scratching the surface here of the very purposeful Eurabia doctrine as presented by author Bat Ye'or, of which we are to witness the latest instalment during the forthcoming Arab-European Dialogue on Human Rights and Terrorism, taking place in Copenhagen on 21-23 October?

This seems to be a good moment to go on record that a family member who worked for an intelligence service in the past, once disclosed that the Cold War ended at a good time, as resources would now become available for monitoring radical Islamist elements. This means that in government circles in 1990 there was known to be a threat from that area. Today it is widely forgotton that the problems didn't start on 9/11, 2001.

While many Western countries have severed their historical ties and suppressed national consciousness for ideological reasons, Greece is still a very free, traditional, Christian country, enjoying their historical roots and national identity and all that entails. While Western Europe is wallowing in decadence, and realing from its self-induced uprootedness, Greece is developing the first affluent middle class.

Deliso: "Many countries in the West, for example Germany and the UK, are in trouble through their multicultural policies." Greece on the other hand is still recovering from the historical black hole that was the blessing of being part of the Ottoman Empire. There are people alive today who remember, and there are those who know because their (grand)parents told them. Greece will have to be force-fed by the EU on multiculturalism, will it ever become a politically correct nation.

Deliso travels through the area extensively and has concluded, there are quite a few Western exiles who have found a home in the Balkans as well, the undersigned one of them. It would seem everybody is more or less adrift these days.

Finally, I'd like to remind the readership that the petition against the independence of the Serb province of Kosovo-Metohija, which would enhance the chances of the Balkan Caliphate even further, can be signed here.

The Excitement of Silly Season: Brussels & Kosovo

In some political circles it is said that it is especially during silly season - when the attention span under the combined pressures of sand, sea and sun is at its lowest - that a hyper state of alert is required: it is then when the dangers of irreversible, accomplished facts on the ground, are at their highest. So, despite the low ebb there are a few noteworthy news items circulating.

- SIOE 9/11 Update:

The mayor of Brussels has declined to give his blessings to the "Stop Islamization of Europe" demo planned for 9/11 on the grounds that "public safety cannot be guaranteed". I think this poses a serious problem. It lays bare to what extent the enlightened dictatorship in the European Union has progressed. Obviously, the prospects of security conditions for the rally getting any better by themselves in the foreseeable future, are negligible.

This means that the civil rights of a large chunk of citizens will have to be suspended indeterminately. This is clearly unacceptable. I do hope the SIOE organization will stay in touch with the Brussels authorities and press on to them that civil rights cannot be suspended forever. Perhaps the mayor can offer a counter proposition?

Update: I just had the opportunity to read some of the comments on the SIOE site. Although no pleasure, it's an education! The combined forces of Radical Islam and the scions of the collective Counter-Enlightenment have already established entire Sharia enclaves. The question is: how many more? Why do free citizens use the term 'haram'? Think about it ...

Update on the update: The Petition in favour of the rally, addressed to the mayor of Brussels, can be signed here. I request anybody who's sympathetic to its cause to sign it - no matter how remote you are from Brussels (physically I'm some 3000 kilometers removed, but mentally the distance can only be measured in lightyears).

- Kosovo Update:

"The great powers are set to kick-start a new set of talks on Kosovo's future on Friday, though with dim prospects of a solution acceptable to both Serbs and Kosovo Albanians. The Contact Group of the United States, Russia, Germany, France, Great Britain and Italy is sending a trio of diplomats - American Frank Wisner, Russian Alexandar Botsan-Kharchenko and German Wolfgang Ischingert, representing the EU - to do the mediating." >>>

"Serbia is ready to grant broad autonomy to Kosovo, but only if the province remains under Serbian sovereignty, the president of a parliamentary commission said Monday. Dusan Prorokovic, head of the commission for Kosovo and Metohija, made the statement ahead of a Contact Group meeting in Belgrade for preliminary consultations Thursday." >>>

"Kosovo warned on Wednesday of rising Albanian tension and eventual street protests, on the eve of fresh talks ... Senior ethnic Albanian political leader Veton Surroi said the patience of Kosovo's ninety percent Albanian majority was not "limitless," and protests "could not be excluded" if independence is delayed much longer." >>>

A Line in the Sand: Brussels 9/11

In yesterday's post on Islamic designs emanating from Albania, on Kosovo for starters, we have spoken of the line in the sand of the Kosovo Polje. While Islamization is taking the West by stealth, it would appear that the process in Kosovo, being played out since the eighties of the last century, took more overt modes of operation.

Little did the West know - or even care - what happened behind "the Iron Curtain", the place where Yugoslavia resided. That may also have been the reason the public was so easily hoodwinked by the unfolding effects of 4th Generation Warfare, viz. spinning the facts into favourable public perceptions, a trick the Socialists By The Third Way (viz. Messrs Clinton & Blair c.s.) have elevated to a form of fine art. I will come back to this shortly in another post, but right now I'd like to showcase Europe's line in the sand, because there always is sooner or later... a line in the sand.

The question is, where, when and how? Where? Well, for one in Denmark, the country that hosted the Mohammed cartoon row, causing all that Muslim rage and indignation. On the initiative of Danish political party SIAD (Stop the Islamization of Denmark) Europe's indigenous grievances are to be taken to Brussels. A Europe wide demo is to be staged on 9/11. I'm not sure what that date means: American style 11th of September, a symbolic if dramatic choice indeed, or the European way of indicating the 9th of November? I hope that will be cleared up.

The SIOE (Stop Islamization of Europe) site further clarifies that "researchers at the University of Copenhagen, after conducting population studies, have calculated that the ethnic Danes (the original population) will become a very small minority in their own country by the end of this century." This is true for a great many European countries.

While politicians, from the ill-informed to the naive, from the KGB ideologically demoralized baby-boomers now in power, to the plain evil and treacherous - urging unwilling indigenous populations to submit and integrate themselves into the Muslim culture - the character of the continent is in the process of being changed forever beyond any recognition.

The Reverend Monseigneur Georg Gänswein, Pope Benedict XVI's private secretary, in a recent interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin warns Europe not to underestimate the dangers of the increasing Islamization. He underlines that the persecution of Christians in the Dar-al-Islam has increased dramatically. And according to repeated assertions issued by the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the count-down for the destruction of Israel has begun.

"The dangers associated with a changing identity of Europe may not be ignored out of erroneous considerations. The Pope's Regensburger speech was supposed to work against a certain naivety." Personally I don't see it any longer in that favourable, innocent light, having gone from naivety to conceit and plain treason. "Erroneous considerations" probably being Ideologically Correct Silence or possibly, the Postmodern (Neo Marxist, relativist, subjectivist) fallacy of holding one culture as good as any other.

The SIOE site posts an article - a cry for help really - by French philosopher and secondary school teacher Robert Redecker, first published in Le Figaro on 19th September 2006. It is just one of many stories of Europeans, exercising their right of free speech, only to see it answered by threats against their lives: fatwas setting them on the run in the own countries, even to the point of protective custody, as was the case with Geert Wilders and Ayaan Hirsi Ali in the Netherlands.

Dr Sanity's psychological analysis - always insightful - is particularly fruitful the last days. Those still at a loss what moves our Muslim brothers and sisters might be well informed by reading the following joint efforts by the entire Sanity Squad:

- A Deer in the Headlights;

- The Ring of Power;

- Paranoia and Projection in the Arab World: the Externalization of Blame for Arab/Islamic Dysfunction **UPDATED**.

The problem very briefly boils down to the fact that the 'superior' faith of Islam should have brought the faithful prosperity, knowledge and riches. Instead it has rendered the opposite: it led to ignorance, poverty and squalor. Faced with the intractable dilemma between that, or giving that pernicious faith up, they now project all evil that is of their own making, externally.

If only Israel didn't exist, if there was no 'Palestinian problem' the Middle East would be a prosperous place. If only they were no Christians, Islam would rule the world. This is the reason Muslims are incapable of accepting criticism. Crisis point has been reached, it now being full blown pathological paranoia. In fact, were peace to break out tomorrow, they wouldn't know what to do with themselves. This being the reason things are unsolvable.

I don't want to leave you without sharing Dr Sanity's post of today, which particularly moved me: inspirational and beautiful, if reality weren't so bloody brutal. Here's an excerpt from "The Cost of Freedom: Fighting and defeating the new barbarians will exact a great toll. The question is, are we willing to pay it?":

"Remember how quickly the West was willing to compromise our freedom of speech in the Danish cartoon matter in order to accommodate the enemy's threats? Consider how many other accommodations many of us are willing--and eager--to make to ensure the Death-Eaters of our own world won't get angry or upset with us over anything.

"And we can't even criticize their insane religion/ideology of death without having the priests of multicultural nihilism swoop down upon us. Very soon, we will have compromised away all that matters to us for the sake of "peace" (but which is really a sort of voluntary enslavement enforced via a societal suicide pact); and in the end, we will no longer have either our precious freedom, nor will we have peace.

"Good people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

A Door in Kosovo

We're back at the crucial subject of the independent Muslim state in the Balkans: Kosovo. Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs on Monday hosted her weekly Blogtalk Radio Broadcast and devoted it largely to the situation on the Balkans. In particular of further evidence what really happened in Bosnia during the war and the intricacies relating to the establishment of an independent state in the Serbian province of Kosovo, currently being relentlessly pursued by the 'international community' in the cause of a Greater Albania.

Listen to Pamela's radio interview with the intrepid independent reporter Julia Gorin, who has sought out the truth and James George Jatras, Director of the American Council for Kosovo (Save Kosovo).

There is a marked lack of factual knowledge about the subject in the West. The established view of politicians and public alike, is based on indolent mainstream media reporting, egged on by public relations firms, paid in Saudi Peninsula petrodollars.

Interestingly in that version of events the clock started ticking when the late President Milosevic drew a line in the Kosovo Polje, beyond which the Serbs decided the harassment on the part of the Ottoman remnants would be endured no more. As a consequence they were seen as the jingoist culprits, accused of anything from mass murder to genocide, turning the other parties - by a curious polarization mechanism - whiter than white. Facts, created by all sides, are harder to come by however .

My latest post on the matter was "Counter Terrorist Blog Swarm Wanted", an initiative of 1389 Mobile Blog. It lists a number of links to further reading, as does Julia Gorin's blog and the site of Save Kosovo, which carries a comprehensive library of articles and news items, as well as links for those willing to take political action.

Here's the latest above average quality article on Ioannis Mechaletos' Strategic Analysis & OSINT Management blog, relaying an article from Malaysia Sun on the basic principle of territorial integrity: I'd to see them get that past the Chinese and Russian seats on the U.N. Security Council!

On the recently censored Jihad Watch blog is an interesting read about a door in Kosovo. Especially the related comments and discussions are instructive. The fact that liberals in the West have declared taboo and shut up people, reporting on who it was, that was probably responsible for it, typifies the mind and speech control emanating from Leftist political correctness. It fills some people with nausea and disgust to call a spade, a spade. In some circles denial of facts is an existential matter!

The relentless persistence with which the establishment of an independent Muslim state in the Balkans is being pushed, just makes one wonder what is behind it all. How can the willful creation of an independent state in an area, that is historically mixed up with brigantry, drug trafficking and sex slavery, ever be an asset to stability of the Balkan Peninsula? The Balkans of all places, what once used to be known as Europe's powder keg, is a notorious source of larger conflagrations, usually euphemistically identified as "some darned thing in the ... (yes) Balkans", the Great War of 1914-1918 being one of them!

Is it an easy way to prove to the Dar-al-Islam that the West isn't a Christian club, or anti Muslim, but just anti Jihad as John Lantos is keen to do, and never mind the fate of the other populations? Or is it giving in to the threat of AKSh violence and pestilence? It is a way to officially overturn a prior U.N. Resolution, proclaiming Kosovo an integral part of Serbia? Or could the attraction possibly lie in the creation of a precedent, by which multi ethnic national states can be broken up, should NGOism - in the interest of stability and world peace - find it expedient to do so?

Postmodern Transnational Progressivism sees the national state as a creation from a bloody past that presided over "wave after wave of ethnic cleansing". It views it not as a symbol of (multi)ethnic identity and unity, but as a casus belli against other such entities, and an open invitation to vicious nationalism.

The postmodern Kantian, Utopean view foresees in areas and territories rather than countries being integrated into larger federations of interdependent states. Examples are the 'highly succesful' European Union and the North American Union, currently being hatched. The Kosovo precedent would certainly make the way to the new world order a whole lot easier.

Update: Thursday 26th July 2007 at 14:55 l.t.: exploding the myth that there are no designs of a Greater Albania!

This is the map of Albania. And see the animation on this site, right under that waiving American flag, for the real Albanian territorial ambitions. And while at it, have a look as well the news items: "Former Soldiers of the United States Atlantic Battalion Ready to Defend Kosova Again" and "Albanian American Civic League". That's royal class P.R. for you!

Of Empire, Old and New

Today more fascinating old and new current affairs items.

- The irrationality of the Palestinians is sometimes of breathtaking proportions:

PALESTINIANS BACK IRAN BOMB
New poll shows Palestinians are number one supporters of Iran nuclear weapons
"Of 37 populations around the world, Palestinians rank first in their level of support for a nuclear-armed Iran, a new poll has revealed. The survey, taken by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, found that 58 percent of the Palestinian public are in favor of Tehran acquiring atomic weapons, making Palestinians the only Middle Eastern population not opposed to an Iranian bomb."

Do they really believe, that if the Scampy Satrap launches a nuclear attack on Israel (God forbid), the West Bank and Gaza'd remain unaffected by it? Truth is, that a multitude of sacrifices is just part of the Satrap's apocalyptic doctrine; If the survey was conducted in that awareness, is unknown. Here's more analysis on the Savvy Satrap's little science project.

- Defense of Democracies has another in-depth article on the Kosovo question: "The Moral Hazard of Kosovo's Independence" by J. Peter Pham.

- On 20th June we posted "Science as Liberal Ideology and a Puzzle Contest" on the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly's draft resolution on the dangers of creationism in education. Well, here's the good news on Europe: thanks to a few east Europeans who haven't yet been relativised out of existence, as well as due to some Christian Democrats with the pangs of the conscience, the vote never even got off the ground!

The Press from Hell on the whole never even reported the Darwinic bummer, but here's Reuters in a topspin headline: "European rights body calls off creationism vote", being echoed by a sole blogger in "Creationism vote canceled by Council and Europe's Parliamentary Assembly", proving that lack of a scientific attitude doesn't necessarily has to stand in the way of self-development and personal growth.

- For the aficionado who knows how to appreciate the European post-democratic Press from Hell, EUX is commenting that any insouciance in respect of the acceptance of the new proposal for the reform treaty (the erstwhile EU Constitution), is as yet premature ... you know ... there is still the "Risk of Dutch EU referendum": no further comments, except to say we seem to have a political version here of "fog over channel, continent cut off".

- Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission yesterday confessed to the press what others like myself have known for some time, which is why I almost consider this a personal victory! Barosso together with Vice-President Margot 'make-love-not-war' Wallstrom (Let's Come Together) (see her blog) asked by the press what the European Union would be after the new reform treaty has been agreed (and the risk of a Dutch referendum averted), answered: "Europe is an empire, a non-imperial one, must be said. But still, an empire." ... with which video exhibit I rest my case ....

- And if that wasn't enough imperialism for one day, the Ottomans are also experiencing bouts of nostalgia! EUX for the last time: "FEATURE: From Turkey's dreams of empire to the energy Great Game".

It was again an eventful day in the Eurabic Empire of Voluntarily Interconnected States!

Of Realism and Resistance, mainly ...

Today a necessary news update, building on recent earlier posts:

With respect to yesterday's post "Counter-Terrorist Blog Swarm Wanted!" Ioannis Michaletos of Strategic Analysis relays an article "Kosovo is Spiralling out of Control" by Mikhail Logvinov. It lays bare a few intricacies in the matter begging closer scrutiny.

- For example: "... if Russia rejects the Kosovo independence plan, Brussels will assume responsibility and make an appropriate decision", in favour of independence, we may assume. On the other hand, according to a spokeswoman for European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana "the EU will make a decision if need be, but only with the UN Security Council’s consent" of which Russia happens to be a veto carrying member. It may be the author who's caught in a circular argument, or it may be the E.U. that has now finally lost its way!


- It seriously beggars belief that Moscow's "(t)rying to prevent the partition of its long-time Slavic ally" is termed "a dubious decision from the viewpoint of international law"! Since when has the encouragement of partition become the politically correct? Since the advent of Transnational Progessivism perhaps? Has the breaking up of sovereign states, to be forcibly incorporated into post-democratic, totalitarian federations already become the official international policy? I would certainly hope that "(t)hose countries whose territorial integrity is threatened are against the current European trend" of the breaking up of sovereign, national states.

- At least 'the West' is not caught unawares of the dangerous consequences of their actions, as they have been "discussing crisis scenarios that should give a legal seal to tough actions against Belgrade". Go ahead, pile it on!

- The article further points out that "Kosovar and Serbian organized crime planned" the 2004 ethnic clashes between Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo. It would appear that, apart from the Wahhabis - it is primarily the mob that would greatly benefit from Kosovo's independence, courtesy of 'the West'.

Here's more from the intrepid Julia Gorin. So far the news from the Eastern front.
Yankee Wombat, an American in Oz recently had two pieces from a surprising perspective.


- His post "The Quick and the Dead" concerns Michael Yon's fabulous independent journalism in Iraq and his recent shocking article "Bless the Beasts and Children", describing and illustrating the horrific way in which Muslims are killing Muslims. Yankee Wombat answers the matter which I registered from the sidelines over the weekend, how this story of whole-sale slaughter broke in the MSM, and was almost immediately denied by same.


- In another post "Eurabia and Delusions of Grandeur" Yankee Wombat reviews Bat Ye’Or's book Eurabia and comments upon what he sees as "the conceit of the Europeans - they were confident that their culture would absorb the Muslims ... Europe fancied itself as the senior partner in this process set to absorb the Mediterranean lands of Africa and Asia into its orbit ..."

Now that a few million Muslims find themselves on the European continent, these prove to be a great deal more assertive in defending their cultural and religious heritage than (post)modern Europeans are wont to do. Now that culture clashes and displacement is on the horizon (see Kosovo), European politicians are at a loss how to handle the monster of their creation, other then by suppressing free speech and appeasing irrational totalitarians. And then to think there have been good men and women giving their lives for our freedom: I'm sure it wasn't this what they had in mind when they signed up!

- Speaking of which, here's another pleasant uptake in the Confessions of a Closet Republican (bless her! and note the story of Liberal oppression in her profile).

- And how Foehammer has finally had enough!!! He's in resistance mode ...

Counter-Terrorist Blog Swarm Wanted!

Present blog swarm request was picked up from 1389 Mobile Blog in respect of a subject close to our hearts: Kosovo, and how the world was duped into believing they did the right thing, while in fact a sort of European Waziristan is in the making (remember Tora Bora?).

Earlier posts in this blog on the subject were:

- Quotes of the Day, History calling, and Yes to an Islamic State in the Balkans
- Tony's Canard, Bunkers and some darned thing in the Balkans
- Neo Totalitarianism (5): the Transnational State
- Transnational Progressivism: an Inexplicable Presumption

These posts contain further links with articles for perusal.

Reason for the blog swarm initiative is the continued journalistic and diplomatic black hole that is the Serbian province and Serb historical heartland of Kosovo. But now another unique, in-depth, comprehensive article by Julia Gorin "Ending the Balkan Quagmire at American Thinker" was published. An earlier article by Gorin can be found in "Radical Islam's Dupes".

Considering that Serb activists are not always acting in their own best interests, as well as the proliferation of conspiracy theories in the Balkans even at the best of times, I'm often very reluctant to rely on any sources that don't meet the highest possible standards. I can state without hesitation that Gorin is one of the most reliable around. She is impartial (if politically incorrect), always professional and of a dying breed: the incisive investigative journalist.

Although it would appear from some quarters that the fateful project may be shelved till the autumn, no time must be lost to inform the world of the impending diplomatic disaster in the heart of the Balkans and how the public is being hoodwinked into believing we are on the right side of history here, while in fact it is a historical and political scandal of the first order.

Further reading:

- Serbia Owed Justice in Kosovo by Gregory Clark (Japan Times)
- That Flapping Sound I hear by William Lind (Military.com)
- Former Kosovan PM goes on trial for KLA's cleansing crimes by Vesna Peric Zimonjic (The Independent on Sunday)
- Whistleblower: Kosovo 'Owned' By Albanian Mafia by Sherrie Gossett (NewsMax.com)
- Wahhabi Rules: Islamic Extremism Comes to Bosnia by Boris Kanzleiter (World {Politics Review)
- Wahhabi leader slain in gunfight; arrests made By Igor Jovanovic (Southeast European Times)

And the very lastest news just in: there seems to be a rather nebulous sort of 'summit' under way in Sarajevo of government leaders, NATO and NGOism who cannot stop repeating that Kosovo's independence is in the "interest of stability". Sedition or ... what?

On the Brink, and led by Irrational Ideologues!

City Journal - Bowling with our own

"Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam, author of "Bowling Alone", is very nervous about releasing his new research, and understandably so. His five-year study shows that immigration and ethnic diversity have a devastating short- and medium-term influence on the social capital, fabric of associations, trust, and neighborliness that create and sustain communities. He fears that his work on the surprisingly negative effects of diversity will become part of the immigration debate, even though he finds that in the long run, people do forge new communities and new ties. Though Putnam is wary of what right-wing politicians might do with his findings, the data might give pause to those on the left, and in the center as well."

Well, how about making a start by publishing these findings, so that instead of pushing ideology based on demonstrable Marxist lies, we might actually start dealing with hard, reality-based facts ...

... like ... how 'racist' Israel Quietly Takes in Thousands of Darfur Refugees ...


... and why the biased BBC sounds like the voice of Hamas. That's because it is Hamas. Melanie Phillips reveals that the story in the Jerusalem Post all but throws away explosive revelation!

And how the 'free world' pushed through - come hell or high water - the creation of an unprecedented diplomatic monstrosity, we all shall long regret it ever saw the light of day ... 'deal' apparently confirmed by the U.S. ambassador to Serbia: Kosovo Compromise Achieved!

And if that wasn't enough, here's some vintage stuff coming from the latest ideologue the world got itself lumbered with: the Darfur Genocide wasn't the result of humans exercising free will, but of ... Global Warming, its purpose becoming now apparent: control and extort!

At which point we are ready for just about anything rotten in the nation state, so let's top that up with the latest news from the front of Transnational Progressivism ...


... if anyone was still in any doubt about where that piece of ideology stems from, it should herewith be removed: Gaddafi Urges Pan African State!

Oh and, whatever changes, it's always the same thing anyway: Chavez shopping subs in Russia!